Captains Courageous

Captains Courageous is Rudyard Kipling's story of little Harvey Cheyne, the spoiled child of a millionaire who gets washed overboard at sea, and is picked up by a fisherman. Harvey asks to be returned to shore, but the captain refuses, as his crew needs to work to make a living. So he's put to work catching and cleaning fish alongside another boy, Dan, who becomes a friend. Over time, little bratty disrespectful Harvey undergoes some kind of change, learning lessons in honor, trust, and hard work. Kipling did win the Nobel Prize, and was the first Englishmen to do so at that, but Captains Courageous isn't exactly a literary masterpiece. It's a charming, lighter story, suitable for the "Hardy Boys" set. It is a tale well told, and the language is vivid and the characters fun and memorable. Also this book might give some readers a challenge, as it's written in colloquial English (from turn-of-the-century New England), but the dialogue is a good example of some old timey talk.